Last week, the Kaga. This week, the Akagi (or Soryu)

[Diggin It]

MIDWAY ATOLL, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (AP) A crew of deep-sea explorers and historians looking for lost World War II warships have found a second Japanese aircraft carrier that went down in the historic Battle of Midway.

Vulcan Inc. director of undersea operations Rob Kraft said a review of sonar data captured Sunday shows what could be either the Japanese carrier Akagi or the Soryu resting in nearly 18,000 feet (5,490 meters) of water in the Pacific Ocean more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) northwest of Pearl Harbor.

The researchers used an autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, equipped with sonar to find the ship. The vehicle had been out overnight collecting data, and the image of a warship appeared in the first set of readings Sunday morning.

To confirm exactly which ship they致e found the crew will deploy the AUV for another eight-hour mission where it will capture high-resolution sonar images of the site. The initial readings were captures using lower resolution sonar. The high-resolution scans will allow the crew to measure the ship and confirm its identity.

The find comes on the heels of the discovery of another Japanese carrier, the Kaga, last week.


Researchers find second warship from WWII Battle of Midway

 

[Diggin It]

"Sonar images of the Kaga show the bow of the heavy carrier hit the seafloor at a high rate of speed, scattering debris and leaving an impact crater that looks as if an explosion occurred in the ocean. The front of the vessel is buried in mud and sediment after nose-diving about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) to the bottom.

The U.S. bombs that struck the Kaga caused a massive fire that left it charred, but the ship stayed mostly together. Its guns, some still intact, stick out the side."




"One of the American ships lost was the USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier that was heavily damaged and being towed by the U.S. on the battle’s final day when it was hit by torpedoes. The other, the USS Hammann, went down trying to defend the Yorktown.

Retired Navy Capt. Jack Crawford, who recently turned 100, was among the Yorktown’s 2,270 survivors.

Japanese dive bombers left the Yorktown badly damaged, with black smoke gushing from its stacks, but the vessel was still upright.

Then the torpedoes hit, Crawford told The Associated Press by telephone from his home in Maryland.

“Bam! Bam! We get two torpedoes, and I know we’re in trouble. As soon as the deck edge began to go under, I knew . she wasn’t going to last,” said Crawford, whose later military career was with the naval nuclear propulsion program. He also served as deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy in the Department of Energy.

The Yorktown sank slowly, and a destroyer was able to pick up Crawford and many others.

In May 1998, almost 56 years later, an expedition led by the National Geographic Society in conjunction with the U.S. Navy found the Yorktown 3 miles (5 kilometers) below the surface."

Deep-sea explorers find Japanese ship that sank during WWII

 

[Diggin It]

"The first scan used low-resolution sonar, so the crew sent their AUV back to get higher-quality images.

"I'm sure of what we're seeing here, the dimensions that we're able to derive from this image (are) conclusive," Kraft said. "It can be none other than Akagi."

The vessel is sitting among a pile of debris and the ground around the warship is clearly disturbed by the impact of it hitting the seafloor.

"She's sitting upright on her keel, we can see the bow, we can see the stern clearly, you can see some of the gun emplacements on there, you can see that some of the flight deck is also torn up and missing so you can actually look right into where the flight deck would be," said Kraft."

Researchers Find Second Warship From WWII Battle of Midway

 

[k0ua]

Pretty cool. I had to open this thread as soon as I saw those famous names to see what was going on.

 

[Diggin It]

It's a shame it took 75 years for the technology to be developed to be able to find them.

Yes, it was the other side, but it's still kind of sobering to know there are some 3,500 people including around 300 of ours in that area that never went home.

 

[Jstpssng]

It's a shame it took 75 years for the technology to be developed to be able to find them.

Yes, it was the other side, but it's still kind of sobering to know there are some 3,500 people including around 300 of ours in that area that never went home.

It's always interesting to read about recovering after all of this time.
At the end of the day they were all grunts. The warlords never endanger themselves.

 

[k0ua]

It's always interesting to read about recovering after all of this time.
At the end of the day they were all grunts. The warlords never endanger themselves.

Yep, We decided not to prosecute their God/Emperor. But he was up to his eyeballs in the war. Decision making and all. They would like to blame it all on the generals/admirals, but that was not the case.

 

[Chaos USMC]

Back in the mid 80's I would use Midway as a "layover". At the time, I needed to get some Beech Super King Airs back and forth, from Hawaii, back east to Alabama for rework. On the way "east", just didn't have the leg's to safely get to California, so, we went backwards, Midway, then Adak, King Salmon, Elmendorf, , Vancouver, California and so on. Same track on the way back to the islands.

We would land on Midway waiting on good weather en-route to, and on the island of Adak, Alaska (no longer an active naval air station). Anyway, while waiting on Midway, sometimes overnight, we would take the time to "walk about". When the gooney birds (Albatross) were on the island, one would have to contact the controller an hour out, so they could get the birds off of the runway. They were literally everywhere. There courting habits were comical but extremely noisy/annoying.

At least back then, there were the remains of radial aircraft engines still sitting in the sand on the beaches and of course the history surrounding the island was always in the back of ones mind. Not sure but think I heard some company was trying to build a hotel there, could have been a rumor, who knows. Last time I went through there, in the 80's, they still had old troop quarters we would bunk down in and eat in a chow hall for the "caretakers" that were still there.

Always an adventure.

 

[turnkey4099]

It's always interesting to read about recovering after all of this time.
At the end of the day they were all grunts. The warlords never endanger themselves.

Exept for Admiral Yamamoto and he paid the price for it.

 

[Diggin It]

Explorers find long-lost USS Grayback submarine after 75-year mystery

Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Undersea explorers said they have found a long-lost U.S. submarine off the coast of Japan that sank during World War II.

The USS Grayback was carrying 80 U.S. sailors when it sank in the waters south of Okinawa in February 1944. The ship is credited with sinking 14 enemy ships before it was torpedoed.

The search ended when they spotted an anomaly on the ocean floor five months ago and high-definition cameras subsequently confirmed the vessel's identity when they captured a gold plaque with the words USS Grayback.

"It was amazing. Everyone was excited," Taylor told The Washington Post. "Then you realize there are 80 men buried there, and it's a sobering experience."

Part of the reason the submarine was lost for so many years, officials say, was because Japanese records on the sinking were not translated correctly. Researchers eventually found one digit was off, which had sent explorers 100 miles in the wrong direction.

Explorers find long-lost WWII submarine USS Grayback after 75-year mystery - UPI.com